Labels

11/2/15

The following SOS Loudoun endorsements of candidates have
been determined based on the candidate participation in the LEAP Forum, the
Loudoun County League of Women Voters Forums, and the survey responses to the
Loudoun Times Mirror and the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce.These candidates, in our opinion, place
public education as a high priority and have the criteria needed to believe
they will be successful.Candidates with
an * have also been endorsed by the Loudoun Education Association.

10/31/15

Four years is a long
time to live with a decision. If you
already know which candidates you are voting for on November 3rd and
you know that they support awesome public schools, then read no further.

Candidates respond to two surveys.There are two
resources that reveal exactly where candidates stand on the important issue of
public education.The Loudoun County
Chamber of Commerce questionnaire ( here
) and the Loudoun Times Mirror questionnaire ( here
).Candidates for both the Board of
Supervisors and the School Board participated in these surveys.

Incumbents of the Board of Supervisors are eager to share
that school funding has increased by as much as 29% since 2011, which is a view
through a cracked door. Broad Run School Board Candidate Joy Maloney offers a
wider view in the Mirror survey stating that, “Our current per pupil spending
is the second lowest in Northern Virginia and lower than it was in 2009.”The Washington Area Boards of Education
(WABE) Guide (here)
shows the comparisons of neighboring school districts and the LCPS website
provides the past funding history and cost per pupil.

Public education is not even on Suzanne Volpe’s (Algonkian
District-R) radar.When asked by the
Chamber, “How do you propose to address the increasing funding requests by
Loudoun County Public Schools to ensure our children receive a quality
education?” she brings up toilet paper.Yes.TP.Suzanne “Don’t Squeeze The Charmin” Volpe
says, “As I explain to constituents all the time, the County buys toilet paper
and the Schools buy toilet paper, why cannot we buy it together and save
money?” While her opponent, Andrew
Resnick (D) responds, “The bottom line is we need leaders who understand the
value of strong schools for our community.… Investing in our schools is directly tied to helping keep property
values high and tax rates low. This in turn helps attract businesses to the
county and ensures Loudoun remains competitive.”

Eugene Delgaudio (Sterling District-R) is focused on bricks
and mortar capital improvements with no mention of what happens in the
classroom.In the questionnaires, Dulles
District Incumbent Matt Letourneau (R) says that he supports public education.Yet, as chair of the Board of Supervisors
finance committee, Letourneau has already supported the committee’s 2017 fiscal
guidance using two scenarios, an estimated real property equalized tax rate ($1.115)
and the current real property tax rate ($1.135). The Board of Supervisors adopted the fiscal
guidance on September 18th.County
government staff has acknowledged that the equalized tax rate does not even
cover the cost of core services for the approximate 11,000 anticipated new
residents.The 2017 budget climate includes an increased county
population, an increased school enrollment, and a likelihood that the $10
million in surplus funds used last year to fund the schools will not be
available again.Will an equalized tax
rate scenario or a current tax rate scenario provide core county services without
reducing them?Will these scenarios
provide continued smaller class sizes, universal full day kindergarten, foreign
language in elementary schools, increased STEM opportunities, programs in the
arts and humanities, greater transition opportunities for students with
disabilities, improvied teacher compensation incentives, or expanding
technology initiatives?

There’s more to learn
from these questionnaires.Supervisor
Suzanne Volpe (Algonkian District-R) and School Board member Debbie Rose
(Algonkian District –R) did not participate in the Mirror’s survey.Many candidates for the Board of Supervisors
are critical of the dated county comprehensive plan that has not been revised
since 2001.Even the incumbents running
for re election are critical that the comprehensive plan is 15 years old.At least they acknowledge the importance of a
current plan but it was not important enough to update it these past four
years.

Candidates supporting
school funding.You can find out how
strong your Board of Supervisor candidate supports school funding by going
directly to the question in the Loudoun Times Mirror survey that asks, “Do you
favor possible increases in the county’s tax structure to finance the growing
cost of education and building more schools?”The Chamber’s questionnaire has a very similar question.Take a look.

In elections, actions
speak louder than words.Let’s vote
with our feet on Tuesday, November 3rd and put leaders on the Board
of Supervisors who will put our children first. Let’s elect School Board
members who will advocate to receive funding for the school budget.

At Large School Board candidate Stephen Knobloch (D) gets to
the point, “Over the past few years, the BOS began budget deliberations by
drawing lines in the sand rather than listening to constituents, gathering
information and identifying required services.The two boards have dug a deep hole.…Let’s not wait until the next
election year, 2019, before we have another fully-funded school budget.”

10/25/15

Use your voice. Vote November 3, 2015, for our schools. Elect a Board of Supervisors and a School Board who will make public education priority #1. In elections, actions speak louder than words. Get out the vote.

10/12/15

The meet and greet for candidates seeking the office of
Chair for the Board of Supervisors was held on October 6th at the
NVCC Loudoun Campus.Participating were Thomas
E. Bellanca (I), Charlie L. King (R), Phyllis J. Randall (D), and Incumbent
Scott K. York (I).The event was hosted
by the League of Women Voters of Loudoun County.

The candidates all mentioned education in their opening
remarks. Afterwards, they were asked, “With the push for full day kindergarten
and the opening of the academies how will you balance the school needs with the
tax bills?Do you see teacher raises,
smaller class sizes, elementary school foreign language in the future?”

It was clear that both King (R) and Randall (D) will make
full day kindergarten a top priority.Bellanca (I) noted that the budget issue of $60 million was important,
that it should be done right from the get go, and that it took Prince William
County five years to implement full day kindergarten.What he did not say was that full day
kindergarten was a top priority.York
(I) stated his support for full day kindergarten but that it would not happen
short term while we continue to build schools to keep up with growing
enrollment. York said that there is no
room for full day kindergarten in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).

York (I) said in the opening remarks that, “Elections are very important. There are consequences for who we vote for.” The election is November 3rd.You may file for an absentee ballot up to 5
pm the Tuesday before the election.For
information about voting, go to voter registration and
elections.

Enclosed you will find a transcript of the candidate opening
remarks references to education as well as the responses to the question concerning
education.

Opening Remarks –
Education References Only

Randall (D):

In this election, I’ve been endorsed by the Loudoun
Education Association PAC. I’ve been endorsed by the Loudoun Police and, today,
I found out I got the endorsement of the Loudoun Firefighters.So the people that serve you, that serve your
families, that serve children have asked me to serve as your chair. I am so
honored by those endorsements.I will be
talking tonight about education, transportation, jobs and the economy, and
transparency and ethics.

King (R):

I’m going to talk a lot about education and transportation,
mental health, and ethics.

Bellanca (I):

I campaigned on better planning that creates funding for our
schools, better economic development, funding a list of priority projects in
the county for transportation.

I was also involved in getting the badly needed funds for
building the high school and middle school in Dulles South, which was a crisis
situation.

I campaign for supporting our schools, to help improve our
schools.

York (I):

In the last four years …we have been able to increase the dollars to education by nearly 35%
from where they were when we came in.We
have had three years where the funding per student has gone up out of those
years and we were able to successfully this past budget session be able to
fully fund the schools request.

Education Question -

With the push for
full day kindergarten and the opening of the academies how will you balance the
school needs with the tax bills?Do you
see teacher raises, smaller class sizes, elementary school foreign language in
the future?

Phyllis Randall (D):

I’m so glad we started with this question because all four
of us have talked about our support of FDK.What you might not know, is that in the General Assembly this year,
Chairman York went down to the General Assembly and lobbied against full day
kindergarten.It was House bill number
2302.I actually have the date, the
time, the bill, the committee, the patron, the co-patron … I have everything
but the restaurant Mr. York took the lobbyists to when he lobbied against full
day kindergarten for Loudoun County.And I really would wonder if he spent taxpayer dollars doing that
because if he did, I don’t call that actually effective use of taxpayer
dollars.

In addition, before anyone says that the School Board has
not asked for full day kindergarten funds, in 2011 in an off year, off budget,
the School Board actually asked to put aside $5 million dollars to start the
study for full day kindergarten in the CIP.But it was not done.So, if you
hear that the School Board did not ask for it, also, not an accurate
statement.You know every other county
in the commonwealth has a plan for full day kindergarten.So this is not rocket science.

As chair, you lead.How do you lead?Well, one thing
you do is go and talk to the other chairs, the superintendents of the schools
and say, how did you do this?How did
you get full day kindergarten in your county?And you figure that out.Budgets
of every time are always about priorities.This Board prioritized a firing range for $20 million dollars when they
could have spent $5 million less dollars.They didn’t prioritize schools with full day kindergarten; they did not
prioritize our students.I will.

Charlie King (R):

I would say that education is Loudoun County’s top
priority.I can’t sit here tonight and
tell you what specific budget item lines I’m going to support, not support in
the future.What I think has to happen
and has not happened in the process is I think there has to be a much greater
dialogue between the board, the staff and the school board long before the
budget process goes.And there has to be
more flushing out of issues and more dealing with issues and better
communication than there has been in the past. I think in these days, I agree
with Ms. Randall, I think that full day kindergarten is a necessity.It’s something I called for very early
on.

What concerns me is there is not even, at the moment, not
even a plan to put kindergarten in place.If I’m chairman, the first thing that I’m going to do, is I’m going to
write a resolution that asks the School Board, because all day kindergarten is
a program issue.The Board can’t order
the School Board to add kindergarten.It
can simply suggest that it do a plan and work with the Board to fund that plan.That’s something that I see as a priority. I think it’s a priority if we want to attract
young families to Loudoun County.

I think it’s a necessity; we are one of only three
jurisdictions in the state that don’t have it.The reason is that somebody built the schools to small. We don’t have
the classrooms.I think we have to do
this now because I don’t think it’s going to get less expensive and I don’t
think it’s going to get easier later.

I’m not running because I want to put off the hard
decisions.

Thomas Bellanca (I):

In December, one of the parents who runs the all day
kindergarten program, the quest for all day kindergarten, which there’s
numerous parents that are involved this process….Held a conference with the new
superintendent of the schools, which I attended.And at that conference it came out that we
were the last jurisdiction in the state besides Virginia Beach, which is a
city, the last county in the state that doesn’t have all day kindergarten.And I specifically asked the question, ‘Well
how long will it take to get it?”The
example that was given was five years which is what Prince William County
did.It was one of their glowing
achievements that they will always hold up that they made this happen.

I think that the budget issue is an important one.There is going to be some $60 million dollars
that’s going to have to be spent on capital improvements.I don’t agree with some of the comments that
I’ve heard about putting trailers up to have it done the first year.I think it makes more sense to do it right,
build the classrooms the way we need them, and again this is a planning
issue.

There’s also going to be tremendous pressure in the next few
years because of the population increase in the middle schools and high
schools.So, it’s also going to be a
priority to make sure that we complete this new high school that’s going to
compete with the Thomas Edison (Jefferson) school in Fairfax.

Incumbent Scott York (I):

What Mrs. Randall did not tell you is what the testimony was
when I was there.The fact of the matter
is that I did not speak against full day kindergarten.What I spoke against was the unfunded mandate
that was being requested by the very delegate she speaks of.Not only did the Board of Supervisors vote
opposing it, so did the School Board.Why?Because we knew at the time,
from when Dr. Hatrick was in office, that it would cost us about $60 million
dollars to implement.

We are building school after school.We are still growing by 2400 students a day
(year).Education is important, it is
the priority.69 cents of every dollar
goes to our children.And as soon as the
School Board comes forward with a plan, and now we are looking at $100 million
dollar bill to go 100% of all students in full day kindergarten.

I support full day kindergarten, but I also support having a
fiscally viable healthy county.And you
have to put it and implement it in a way that protects your county.Right now there is no room in the CIP to
create the room for an all day kindergarten because we are building school
after school just to keep up with where we are at.And ladies and gentleman, as soon as we are
able it will happen.But right now,
because of growth, we are really kind of behind on the number of schools
needed, barely keeping up.The schools
we build now are actually the largest schools in Northern Virginia for
elementary schools.

10/6/15

Remember that the candidates for the Board of Supervisors
who attended the September 28th and the September 30th Loudoun
League of Women Voters’ meet and greets all said that they support full day
kindergarten.On November 3rd,
take note of who has been elected and hold them accountable for supporting FDK
during their campaign if you want to see that accomplished. While answering the
questions on that, they also talked about some of their views of Loudoun’s
public education in general.

This post covers the September 28th meet and
greet for Ashburn and Dulles candidates and the September 30th meet
and greet for the Blue Ridge, Catoctin, and Leesburg district candidates.

Attending September 28th at the Gum Springs
Library:

Mike R. Turner (D-Ashburn)

Incumbent Ralph M. Buona (R-Ashburn)

Anjan S. Chimaladinne (D-Dulles)

Incumbent Matt F. Letourneau (R-Dulles).

Attending September 30th at the Leesburg Senior
Center:

Richard A. Jimmerson (I-Blue Ridge)

Craig M. Green (D-Catoctin)

William A. Estrada (R-Leesburg)

Kristen C. Umstattd (D-Leesburg)

Absent were Tony R. Buffington, Jr. (R-Blue Ridge) who did
not respond to the invitation and Geary M. Higgins (R-Catoctin) who had a
conflict.

Leesburg Today covered the Ashburn/Dulles forum here
and you can read the Loudoun Times Mirror coverage of the Blue
Ridge/Catoctin/Leesburg eventhere.

The final LOWV meet and greet will be held on Tuesday,
October 6, 2015, for Chairman, Board of Supervisors with Thomas E. Bellanca
(I), Charlie L. King (R), Phyllis J. Randall (D), and Incumbent Scott K. York
(I).This will be held at 7 pm in
conjunction with NVCC in the Waddell Theatre on the Loudoun campus. It's open
to the public and free to attend.

The Loudoun Chamber of Commerce is also holding a
Supervisors candidate forum on Wednesday, October 7, at 8 am at the National
Conference Center in Lansdowne. For more information and to purchase tickets,
click here.

While the only education-related question asked at each of
the September forums was on the topic of full-day kindergarten, the candidates
also talked about education funding in general. Check out the excerpts of their
responses below to give more insight into who would support our schools.

Ashburn and Dulles

Question:Dr. Williams has put forth a plan in which he
can get half of kindergarten students into full day kindergarten over four
years at a cost of $35.5 M.Previous
estimates have come in for Universal full day kindergarten for $52 million.Is the plan proposed by Dr. Williams
aggressive enough and will you push supervisors to fund it?

Turner (D-Ashburn).The short answer is no, it is not aggressive
enough.LC right now is the only county
in Virginia that does not have a plan for full day kindergarten.We are the only county in Virginia right now
that does not have at least 50% of it’s students in full day kindergarten.We are one of like only 3 counties total in
Virginia that don’t have full day kindergarten.The benefits of full day kindergarten are manifest.The was a study by the University of Virginia
in December that clearly demonstrated for the first time an evidenced based
conclusion that FULL DAY KINDERGARTEN has a lasting effect through all of
primary education.I cannot understand frankly
why for the wealthiest county in the United states for six or seven years
running is not able to do what every other county in Virginia has done, which
is plan for full day kindergarten.This
Board has underfunded education for the last 3 ½ years by$95 million dollars.They will tell you they have increased funding
by 15 to 20 30% the number varies.But
when you‘ve got a glass that is empty and you add a 10 or 15% percent of water
to it, it is still fundamentally an empty glass.We need to fully fund education.And we certainly don’t need to underfund
education because of an artificial, government imposed reduction of property
taxes that creates artificial budget crisis every year, the primary impact of which
falls on education because let’s face it, for the last four years education,
public education in this county has not been a priority for these
supervisors.

Buona (R-Ashburn).I took the public position almost three years
ago that I fully support full day kindergarten.And there are those who have said otherwise, but I have documentation to
show that I took that position three years ago.I put this at the top of my list with the LCPS.We have an issue of operating costs versus
capital costs.The operating costs we
could easily handle within the current budget, there is no doubt about that to
go to full day kindergarten.I agree, I
don’t think the plan is aggressive enough either.I’d like to see us move faster to get this
done.I’ve talked to Superintendent
Williams about it, I’ve talked to the chairman of the School Board about
it.And they are working that plan.That said, we have a capital problem.That is, we have schools that can’t
accommodate this.So one of my
suggestions has been, lets go to the principal and teachers in every single
elementary school and say, “If we can fund full day kindergarten today, how
would you make it work in your school?Could you rearrange things in your school?Do you need modular trailers for a period of
time until we can build?”I mean, there’s
a hybrid of approaches, lots of approaches we can take here.We can handle the capital costs because the
capital costs are probably in the neighborhood of $60 million.And it’s a lot of elementary schools we need
to add on to.So, can we do it right
away?I believe we can from an operating
perspective.We are going to have to be
creative though, on the other side of that.When we took office , the average spent per student was $11,000.This year, the average spent per student in
this county is over $12,700.So I would
say we have taken this in the right direction over the past 3 ½ years.We have significantly increased the school
budget over what the previous board did.Thank you.

Chimaladinne
(D-Dulles).“I would definitely
support, as a parent of two children who had entered half day kindergarten
program I know the pain.I definitely
give the support for full day kindergarten, that’s a basic need.And as the richest county that was mentioned
earlier, we should be doing that.I
would like to work with the general assembly to bring back our tax dollars ….”

“My opponent did vote for school funding cuts year after
year. FY13, FY14, FY15 close to $76 million dollars.That’s not fully funding our schools.I would like to fully fund our schools every
single year.Not just election
years.Thank you.”

Letourneau (R-Dulles).So I’m the only person up here who has two
children who have not yet entered full day kindergarten.So this is not just an academic discussion
for me.I’ve had two that have been
through ½ day and two that are entering kindergarten.So, I understand the stakes here and they
personally effect me and we absolutely do need to move toward a system that has
full day kindergarten.That’s not what
I’m debating.But what nobody up here is
discussing is what they are going to cut from the capital budget in order to
make it happen.And that is why this is
a concern.Unlike others, I don’t sell
Dr. Williams short and I don’t sell the school board short.I know that they take this problem seriously
and I know that they are addressing it.The plan that was just introduced just came to the school board about a
month ago.So I do want to give the school
board some time to work on it.That’s
the way our system is supposed to work. The school board makes a proposal and
then the Board considers funding on it.Will I do whatever I can to actually fund it?Absolutely.But the reality is, particularly in this part of the county, our
elementary schools are at capacity.And
you’d have to double the number of sections of kindergarten in order to make
way, make room for full day kindergarten.I am not willing to put 35 kids in a classroom at every other grade
level for full day kindergarten.I am
not willing to cancel the Advanced Technology Academy project, our STEM focused
high school in order to do full day kindergarten.And what we have not heard from any of the
other candidates running on this platform is any kind of detail whatsoever
about what they are taking out of the capital budget.Because, make no mistake, something will have
to come out of the capital budget as Supervisor Buona said.Now we have funded the schools with a 29%
increase versus 15% enrollment.We were
playing catch up from the previous Board of Supervisors, which was not
controlled by my political party.But we
went through some tough times in Loudoun.We have done so in a sustained way and we have found a relationship with
the new Superintendent where we are able to increase the budget $70 million
dollars the last two years.One year it
was fully funded one year it was not.But the budget increase was $70 million dollars for both years.Now, I’ve heard a lot of feedback about what
goes on in our schools.

Blue Ridge, Catoctin, and Leesburg Districts

Question.Is all day kindergarten a high priority
for you and your constituents?

Umstattd (D-Leesburg).Yes.For better or for worse, we live in a county where families, both
members, the family, have to work full-time, and they have to commute and have
to work long hours.And we all wish that
were not the case, but it is.They need
good full day kindergarten for their children.I wish we could all you know just be home with our children all the
time.And I know we all want to be
there, but the realities of trying to make a living in Loudoun County are so
difficult.We need our children to be in
safe places and we need them to have the best learning opportunities that they
can.My constituents are in favor of full
day kindergarten and I think we need to come up with a way to fund it.We need to fully support our public schools
because, you may or may not have children in public schools, but if we let our
children fall through the cracks, who is going to support any of us when we get
to old to work ourselves?It’s the
reality of modern America and I think our children deserve the best that we can
give them.

Estrada (R-Leesburg).My wife Rachel and I have a three year-old
Dominic and like many of you, like many of your children, or taking care of
your grandkids you see that full day kindergarten that would be offered by the
schools would be an incredible benefit to all us.So, I think that all of us support full day
kindergarten in theory but a politician will say on day one, “I am going to
give you full day kindergarten.”As a
steward, as someone seeking your vote to be a wise steward of your resources,
while I support full day kindergarten, there are several priorities we need to
make sure that we have first before we implement it in our county.Again, it’s being implemented partially, so I
think the question is whether we do full day kindergarten instanteously.We need to make sure first that our teachers
are receiving the pay that they deserve.My dad spent 34 years as a special education teacher in a New York state
public school.He’s still substituting
now as a Spanish teacher.I have friends
who are teachers here in Loudoun County, some of the hardest working men and
women you will ever see.We are not
paying them enough money.Let’s hear it
for our teachers.The other thing we
need to make sure is that our classrooms are not overcrowded.While I support full day kindergarten, I was
personally intrigued by the story by Danielle Nadler in Leesburg Today,
September 30th, where she wrote, ‘Loudoun’s high schools boost
graduation rates.….The first priority we have on the Board of
Supervisors and our school board is to make sure that our schools are the best
in the nation.I will support our
schools and we will look at ways to bring in full day kindergarten.

Jimmerson (I-Blue
Ridge).I actually do support full
day kindergarten.I’ve knocked on
hundreds of doors over the last couple of months, it feels like thousands of
doors over the last couple of monthsand
I’ve asked people what was most important to them.And the main things that I’ve heard was education and roads.They are really worried about traffic.They are really worried about education. And more times than not, I’ve actually heard
people talk about full day kindergarten.They’ve pointed out that we are one of the few counties in the state
that does not have full day kindergarten and they think that that is absolutely
ridiculous.Some of them are actually
going to kindergartens in other counties or they are paying for private school
for kindergarten so that they can have full day.I think that we need to align ourselves with
the other counties in the state, we need to have full day kindergarten, and we
need to do what it takes to make that happen.I would like to echo the comments that were made about teachers not
having what they need to do their jobs in Loudoun County.Many of the teachers that teach my children
in elementary, middle, and high school do not live in Loudoun County, they live
in West Virginia, they live in Winchester, they live in other areas and we need
to do something about that and I think it is about time that we did.I want to also note that I do have a
recommendation from the LEA (Loudoun Education Association).I will be a very strong advocate for the
schools as a Loudoun supervisor.

Green (D-Catoctin).This topic alone is worth another hour of
conversation.Philosophically, we are
all in favor of full day kindergarten.…We spend a lot of money on
buildings and hardware in this county, but we don’t spend enough on the
teachers that fill them.…What can we do to get those capital costs
down ….Whatever we can do to get good
well paid happy people in less expensive buildings would be a much better thing
for Loudoun County.